In an Internet of Things where countless devices are communicating wirelessly with one another via sensors and processors, a key concern for architects is that endpoints are powerful enough but don't suck up too much energy, especially when idle. This goes both for IoT deployments at homes and at enterprises, where IoT is expected to take off.

"A key challenge is designing these circuits with extremely low standby power, because most of these devices are just sitting idling, waiting for some event to trigger a communication," says Chandrakasan, in a statement. "When it's on, you want to be as efficient as possible, and when it's off, you want to really cut off the off-state power, the leakage power."

Bob Brown is a news editor for Network World, blogs about network research, and works most closely with our staff's wireless/mobile reporters. Email me at bbrown@nww.com with story tips or comments on this post.